Chronic diseases affect around 20% of the U.S. population, which amounts to nearly 90 million U.S. residents. Medical care for persons suffering from chronic diseases accounts for over 70% of total medical care expenditures. One growing chronic disease is Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) with an estimated 4 million cases in the U.S. These numbers are projected to triple in the next 10-20 years with a projected $10.7 billion dollars spent on direct medical expenditures in the United States.
The medical therapies for chronic diseases are cumbersome and typically involve the use of combined pharmacological therapy with associated adverse reactions, frequent dose adjustments and extensive care and monitoring of the patient. In addition to cost of the medications, chronic disease management requires long term, on-going and frequent time commitments primarily of professionally trained staff.
The relatively frequent and serious adverse drug reactions associated with HCV pharmacological therapy makes the management of this disease even more complex and expensive. HCV patients require frequent interventions and a high level of support. Consequently, treatment fails 25-50% of the time. An estimated 30 % of the treatment failure can be ascribed to non-compliance and lack of nursing and medical support. In fact, it has been estimated that the lifetime cost per patient with untreated chronic HCV is around $53,000 for outpatient and hospital care. While a course of potentially curative therapy is approximately $12,000.
Thus, an automated disease management program designed to facilitate chronic medical therapy is of paramount importance today. By decreasing cost and streamlining human resources, such a program eliminates many of the issues described above.